Time and Time Again
by Khadon
Summary: ON HIATUS!Ever have one of those days that never ends? Harry will. The prophecy says that one must die at the hands of the other but what happens if someone else does it first. No pairings planned. Sorry about the bad summary. Give it a read anyway.


**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter and all affiliated characters don't belong to me. I'm not making any money off of this and I never will.

Chapter 1 – And So It Begins

_8:45pm, May 26th, 1997 (Day 1)_

Harry Potter was sitting on his bed in the sixth year boys' room trying to finish the last of his homework. It wasn't going very well. He could have blamed it on the storm outside. He could have blamed it on the fact that writing an essay on how to change a Labrador into a Bulldog wasn't terribly interesting or useful. He could have blamed it on a number of things but the real reason he couldn't get his homework done was that he was thinking too much. Not thinking of his homework of course but his life.

Harry felt like his life had been going down hill for a long time now but the worst part of the whole thing was that he realized it was mostly his fault. After Voldemort had been reborn (from Harry's blood) and his godfather, Sirius, had been killed (because he was trying to rescue Harry) Harry had thought things could only get better. He was wrong. A month into the summer following his fifth year he was attacked at the Dursley's. Harry had escaped but Death Eaters had killed his relatives before the Order could arrive to save them. Blaming himself for their deaths (and rightly so because if he didn't exist they wouldn't have been attacked) Harry realized that in order to keep those he loved safe he would have to distance himself from them.

And so began the worst year in the life of Harry Potter. Voldemort had continued his attacks of random families of wizards in earnest and Harry was forced to watch many of these attacks through his connection to Voldemort. His friends had tried to support him but he refused all aid and comfort and was often only seen for classes and no where else. He had quit Quidditch and refused to restart the DA despite the pleading that he received from many of its members. Instead he spent all his time training and studying alone. He used the Marauders map to consistently avoid his friends and ate his meals in the kitchen with Dobby (the one friend he allowed himself to retain.) Many of his professor's were worried about his behavior but as his marks were higher than ever they let him be. After awhile Ron and Hermione stopped trying to get Harry to talk, they stopped trying to find him after class, and they stopped trying to spend any time with him at all. Harry tried to convince himself it was for the best.

But it was hard sometimes. Today had been an especially bad day. All the sixth year boys had accidentally slept in and they had been awoken to the sound of Hermione yelling at Ron through the door to wake up before they were late for class. From there Harry had first gone to Potions where Professor Snape had continued his favorite hobby of insulting Harry and his dad and telling him how incompetent and arrogant they both were. Today Snape had asked a number of obscure questions that not even Hermione had known the answers too. When Harry answered incorrectly to all of them he managed to lose Gryffindor a remarkable 50 points. Snape seemed to be trying to get some sort of reaction out of Harry but all he did was take the point loss and return to taking notes on the potion for the days class. After the class was over he had tried to escape quickly to the kitchen for lunch but was told by the elves that he had to eat in the Great Hall today because of some sort of pudding accident that had taken place. Thinking his day couldn't get much worse Harry had resigned himself to a meal in the cramped Great Hall and had just entered only to find himself harassed by Draco Malfoy. Deciding that food really wasn't worth it today Harry had simply turned and left the Slytherin standing there insulting thin air. There had been a special Hogsmeed visit scheduled for that afternoon but as Harry had no friends to go with he decided he might as well train instead. He went and hid himself in the Room of Requirement until suppertime at which point he took the opportunity to return to his room in Gryffindor tower. This is where he now found himself as he tried to get the latest Transfiguration essay done.

He sighed and looked at the clock.

8:58pm

It was still too early to realistically go to sleep. He could hear the sounds of laughter coming from the Common Room and he wished, not for the first time, that he could go down and join them. He had to be strong though. He had to be strong to keep his friends safe.

Who was he kidding? He didn't have friends any more. They had all long since been chased away. Chased away to keep them safe.

Harry sighed again and looked at the clock.

8:59pm

'Time flies when you're miserable.' He thought to himself. He glanced back at his essay before throwing to the ground in disgust. He was starting to get a headache and he was starting to feel some pain in his scar. Voldemort was happy. Harry didn't have time to wonder why though as he glanced at his clock once more. He had just enough time to see the numbers change to 9:00pm before his blood began to burn. It felt like something was boiling inside his veins and pulling him apart. He clenched his eyes shut as the pain ripped through every part of him and just as he thought he could take no more it stopped, just as suddenly as it had begun.

But when he opened his eyes he didn't see his bed or even the floor of his room. Instead he saw dirt, and when he looked up, the cruel smiles of Voldemort and half a dozen Death Eaters.

His wand had been sitting on his bedside table while he was doing his homework so it didn't take the Death Eaters very much time to quickly capture and restrain him. Before he knew it he was chained to the ground with his arms and legs spread out like he was doing jumping jacks. Harry recognized some of the faces surrounding him. Lucious Malfoy, who had escaped from Azkaban at the beginning of the year, Bellatrix Lestrange, the bitch who had killed Sirius, and Peter Pettigrew, who had betrayed Harry and his parents when he was only a year old. He recognized others as well but it was those three that mattered most. Them and Voldemort of course. Voldemort, the snake faced with red slits for eyes who was now observing the struggling form of Harry Potter with obvious glee.

"It seems that I've caught both you and the Muggle loving fool Dumbledore by surprise once again Harry." Voldemort said with a smirk.

Harry, managing to dredge up all the Gryffindor courage he could, managed to give a smirk of his own. "Oh no, I thought of doing something to stop you but then I thought 'Why deprive myself of your wonderful company?' I mean honestly Tom. Where else can I go to hear an evil lunatic spout gibberish about pureblood superiority?"

Voldemort chuckled. "Ah Harry, if there's one thing you've impressed me with its your spirit. I think I'll miss that the most once you're dead. You see no one knows you're here. Dumbledore's spy in my inner circle was kept in the dark; your friends certainly won't begin to look for you until tomorrow, as you yourself have made sure of with your anti-social behavior. No, I'm afraid that by the time they realize you're missing it will be too late for you. In fact I imagine they won't notice you're gone until I send your body back in a few hours. I'm actually a little disappointed it was so easy." Voldemort sighed. "I was picturing some sort of duel to the death but it hardly seems possible now since you neglected to even bring your wand. Pity."

"Yes, quite a shame isn't it?" Harry muttered. He was starting to despair. Voldemort was right. No one would know he was missing. There would be no rescue this time. Voldemort could see the sudden realization as it entered Harry's eyes.

"Yes, you understand now don't you?" Voldemort bent down and whispered in his ear. "You're going to die screaming, all alone."

Harry could think of only one proper response. He spat in the dark wizard's face.

Voldemort recoiled and his eyes flashed in anger and he raised his wand, preparing to curse Harry, before he regained his composure. With a chuckle he wiped the spit of his face. "There's that spirit again eh Potter? Sorry, but no quick death for you tonight." He turned away from Harry and addressed the assembled Death Eaters. "Have some fun with him. I want to hear him scream. Kill him before the spell ends. Give yourself plenty of time to do it before midnight."

The assembled Death Eaters chuckled and nodded their heads in acknowledgment of their order. Lucious Malfoy drew his wand and looked down on Harry. "Now, where to begin?" he drawled.

Harry closed his eyes in anticipation of the pain.

_11:55pm_

In the past few hours Harry had gone through so much pain that it had started to lose all meaning. Kept alive and conscious by various spells and potions, it had been a long time since Harry had stopped struggling and began to wish for Death to take him. They had started with the Cruiciatus curses but had quickly tired of those as they left no visible signs of damage. The had started next with the Cutting curse and the Bone-crushing hexes until now, looking at Harry was like looking at a giant slab of ground beef. He was covered in blood and it had taken four Blood Restorative potions to stop him from bleeding to death. Macnair, the Death Eater who used to execute dangerous animals for the ministry, had used his axe to chop off Harry's hands and feet. They had then burned the wounds closed with hot irons to stop the bleeding, and to give more pain. Harry was having trouble breathing due to the bone fragments that had pierced his lung and he had long ago lost his voice from spell damage. If had been physically capable he would have jumped for joy when a Death Eater ran to the group and informed them to finish him off.

Harry's watched as Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucious Malfoy drew lots to see which one of them would get the honor of killing him. Lestrange won and as she pointed her wand at him she gave him one final taunt. "Say high to your godfather for me baby Potter." Harry watched as she smiled and her mouth formed the words that pronounced his death.

"_AVADA KEDAVRA!"_ The green jet of light shot from her wand and collided with his chest and as he felt sweet death wash over him he realized that now there would be no one to protect the friends he had left. Because of the prophecy there was no one else who could stop Voldemort. But then the last bit of his life left his body and Harry Potter was dead.

On a different plane of existence, in the midst of a white swirling mist a voice could be heard.

"_And either must die at the hands of the other."_

And in the world of Harry Potter, time changed.

_8:00am, May 26th, 1997 (Day 2)_

"RON! Wake-up! Wake-up now or we're going to be late for class." The voice of Hermione echoed through the room of the sixth year Gryffindor boys.

Harry Potter shot up from his bed. Wide-awake in an instant. He looked at his surroundings then at his hands which were both there and very solidly connected to his arms.

"Well…" he whispered to himself in confusion. "That's weird."

**A/N:** As an added bonus to my other update earlier here's the first chapter of anew fic I've had the idea for. I still plan on working on my other two but this idea has been bursting to get out for awhile now. Hope you enjoy. Please review.


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